Beginning at the Beginning
by Wisteria1
Summary: The life of Lily Evans: A story of strength despite sorrow.
1. Part 1

On December 19, 1963, in the midst of the holiday rush, there was stillness in Oxford's Hospital for women. A group of nurses were huddled around a small table in the nearly empty maternity ward. Their silence was solemn and reverent as they prayed for the lifeless mass atop it that should have been Jonathan Evans. The stillborn came at 4:23 PM from the womb of his mother, Sarah, who was now sleeping restlessly in room 221 with the company of her husband and 2 year old daughter, Lily. The peace of ward and prayers of the women were suddenly ended by cries of "My Baby! My Baby!" from room 221.  
  
Sarah Evans woke in a strange room and was startled by the unfamiliar surroundings. Her eyes were swollen and sore as if she had wept herself to sleep. When she offset her daze of exhaustion and recognized her circumstances, her heart dropped like lead and she wished dreadfully to be back in the droning bliss of sleep. She began to claw at her own chest in a brutal attempt to rip out her soul to stop its ache. Her cries were massive and they shook the occupants of the ward to the core. They were joined by those of her daughter, who, although she did not understand her mother's sorrow, felt that she could console her broken mother with her own screams.  
  
The constant cry from the lips of the woman was, "Let me see him! Where's my baby! Give me my Son!" which she shrieked as she shuddered and rocked back and forth.  
  
Jonathan Sr, who was her husband, took his daughter's hand and brought her into the hall. He gently took hold of a passing RN's wrist.  
  
"Please, let my wife have some closure. Let us see our baby."  
  
"I'm sorry sir, I just can't let you do that, I don't have the authority."  
  
Jonathan, who rarely got angry, tightened his grip on the nurse's arm. Despite his growing anger, his voice remained calm as he repeated his plea, "Just give me my son! Don't make me do anything rash."  
  
"I can't, I really am sorry, but I can't. I'll speak with Doctor Anderson, but I can't promise anything."  
  
He mouthed a silent thank you as the nurse turned and walked towards the office. Jonathan stood in that spot under the bright fluorescents staring into nothing. It took him awhile to realize that he was alone.  
  
In his vain attempts to access his son, Jonathan Evans had let go of the hand of Lily. There was now a toddler clumsily walking towards the place where those three reverent nurses had been praying. The curious little girl climbed onto the chair next to the table and quietly gazed at the soft white sheet covering her brother. With delicate pink baby fingers, she gingerly plucked the cloth from the table and saw him. She was neither frightened nor saddened by the sight; rather, she stroked the cold gray flesh and kissed the cheek right below her brothers startlingly green eyes. The little girl sat, and held the immobile arm of Jonathan Evans Jr.  
  
"No, no, no, a patient in her state of emotional shock cannot see the thing that put her into that state! To see it would be even more draining than not." Doctor Anderson was a very matter-of-fact person with little interest in more than diagnosis and treatment. His voice was blunt and haughty as it traveled through the corridor.  
  
"But Doctor, she keeps screaming for him, you've heard her, it's impossible not to. You must have some sort of sympathy for your patient; it's a human being that we're talking about! A human child! Listen, Sarah's husband, Jonathan I think- like the boy...- he stopped me in the hall and spoke to me quite sincerely. I think it would be the only right thing to do."  
  
"You, Rachel, should not even be involved with the patient. You are not a medical nor psychological doctor and also have no right to be involved in these 'moral issues', they are not your concern, and as a matter of fact, mine either, so I am just going to diagnose and discharge the patient, end of story."  
  
The squat nurse, Rachel, opened her mouth to disagree with the Doctor who she was following, but was silenced to a hoarse "Oh my-" as they turned the corner into the room occupied only by a little girl with red pigtails.  
  
"What is that child doing in here and why is she handling the- the specimen?" voiced Anderson in a most professional tirade.  
  
Before anyone could answer, Rachel lifted Lily from the chair and stood her by her side. She repositioned the cloth around the stillborn and picked him up as if he were her own. "If you won't bring this boy to his parents, then I will. They want or even need to see him, and I don't give a hoot whether or not it goes against your 'diagnostic analysis'. For this is love they need, not medicine."  
  
"Rachel", spoke an annoyed Doctor Anderson, "I'll have you know that if you walk to the door of this room with the corpse, your job is on the line. And if you step out, you had better be looking in the want-ads because there is no place for you here."  
  
"C'mon sweetie", Rachel spoke softly to Lily, who was staring up at her with liquid blue eyes, "let's go back to mummy." She swiftly bustled out of the room with the two siblings, Jonathan in her arms and Lily speeding to catch up. Doctor Anderson was left with only the company of his own shadow, which was small and petty in the direct light. His anger welled as he watched the company travel away, but he suppressed it by occupying himself with reading the resumes of potential nurses.  
  
They entered room 221 to find Jonathan sitting once again beside his sleeping wife. He stood when he saw his daughter enter behind Rachel. "Lily, where did you go? Don't you ever run off like that again! And with mum sick!" he said as her took his daughter and sat her down in the seat that he had been sitting in. After situating his daughter he looked up at Rachel to thank her, but stopped when he saw what she was holding.  
  
"I-i-is that...?" he stammered.  
  
"Yes it's your son", replied Rachel gently, "if you don't want to see him I'll understand. But it was the most amazing thing. I found your daughter sitting with him just as if he were alive. Such a lovely girl, I believe you have another?"  
  
"Petunia, yes, she is with some family friends, The Dursley's. She really didn't want to come, probably couldn't handle it... Could I please-?"  
  
At the name of Dursley, Rachel lifted her head slightly in recognition, but her gesture was unnoticed by the fretting father. She realized that this really was no time to proclaim how small the world was and spoke in a more subdued tone, "Of course, here you are", said the nurse as she passed the blanket wrapped infant to his father.  
  
At the sight of his son, Jonathan Evans face grew gaunt, worn, and heavy. In the short moments that it took for him to stare into the empty shell of a child, he aged twenty years. The sight of the miserable man cradling his lost baby wetted Rachel's cheeks as she listened to his choking sobs. She stood there, with tears falling openly, and was amazed at the strength he admitted when he spoke through his tears.  
  
"Green eyes... like his grandmother... she had the greenest eyes..." it took prodigious fortitude for Jonathan to utter these words through his tears. He had been hit by a sadness that wrenched his heart clean out of his chest. Lily, who had been sitting on the bedside seat, ran to her father and latched lovingly onto his leg. With the sound of her husband's sobs backed by the rhythmic pattern of her daughter's footfall, Sarah Evans fluttered her eyes open once again.  
  
Her's was the very image of pain and anguish. Her face was pale and her hair was matted to her head with sweat. Her breaths grew short and quick when she saw what her husband clasped to her chest. Her voice caught in her throat, though it was apparent that she wished to speak. Jonathan stepped towards his wife cautiously, knowing the difficulty of despondency.  
  
Lily, knowing that her mother would be forever changed from the smiling hopeful woman to one bitter, wasted life, cried so greatly that her sound drowned out all the sorrow in the room and replaced it with naive fear and a single plea to retain the sweetness of the word, "MUUUMMMMMMYYYYY!!!!" 


	2. Part 2

Five years passed since that fateful afternoon when the spirit of little Jonathan Evans was taken from the clutches of earth before he could even see the sun. Sarah, his mother, has been, since then, caught in limbo between sound and silence; happiness to her is just a bright memory that is snuffed out with the slightest breath. His sisters, Lily and Petunia, now seven and nine have stuck up a cruel rivalry; the bitterness between them is only sweetened by their love of Sarah, who is often distant. Jonathan Sr. juggles both his own life and that of his frail wife, and has only weariness to show for it.  
  
Lily's life was split in two, when she was born, she was born into a family that required an incredible amount of patience and thought to manage. Her father, Jonathan, was like any other man, average height and build, a business man, whose kind nature and quick wit had caught him a beautiful wife. Sarah, on the other hand, was fascinating, her charisma; unnatural, and when she told her soon to be husband that she was a witch, he only loved her more for it. They had two children, but after they tried for a third, Sarah was filled with so much dread and woe, that all magic seemed to pass from her soul. The couple had struck up an agreement at Lily's birth, (Petunia had been born a muggle, like her father, and could not cast a spell to save her life), they knew that the differences between their own upbringings were great, so they decided that Jonathan would raise Lily as a muggle for the first ten years of her life, and when she turned eleven, she would be sent to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, to follow in her mother's footsteps.  
  
In the August before Lily's 2nd year of grade school, things were hectic, but perhaps that was only because if she stopped for one second in the Evans' house, the melancholy mood of the place would creep into her bones and the all to familiar feeling of loneliness and desolation would grab hold of her heart. She still didn't understand her constant sorrow or why her mother always cried. Her sister was often playing on the other side of town, with her very best friend, Vernon, but Lily felt that even if her sister was usually home, she would never make an adequate playmate.  
  
Her father was currently struggling to make breakfast and prepare for work at the same time, and he stumbled out of the bathroom with a razor in one hand and a spatula in the other. Sarah still slept soundly because, even with all of the emotional trauma experienced by the couple, Jonathan's love for her never waned, and he insisted on his working towards her well-being.  
  
"Lily, could you please help me find my other shoe?" shouted Jonathan, who was now struggling in a fierce battle with the frying pan, which seemed to insist on keeping the eggs until they were adequately charred. So the young girl hopped down from the window ledge where she sat and began searching for her father's shoe, finding it under the coffee table in the parlor. Jonathan, after retrieving the shoe from the clutches of his daughter, kissed her forehead. He shoved it onto his foot as quickly as he could manage, snatched up his hat and briefcase and called to his daughter, "Petunia, if you want to go over the Dursley's today, you have to come down now. I'm late already!" Lily, watched as her sister bounded down the stairs, quickly shot her a nasty and condescending look, and shot out the door.  
  
Lily was entirely alone again, with the exception of her mother who was still dozing in her bedroom. She traveled back to the ledge to continue gazing at the pale blue sky, wishing to be there, to see the sky from the sky and touch the face of the moon. These were only impatient dreams of course; Lily knew that she would someday be able to ride at whim through the air. Her mother often told her stories of magic, of great deeds that were accomplished by the slightest of men and fantastic adventures that were no more than fairy tales to her peers.  
  
"Lily", her mother's voice sounded from up stairs. It was weak but determined, every day was a constant struggle for Sarah, but she drained every ounce of stamina from each, and survived with only that and her love of her family. Lily answered her hypnotic call by following the sound to its source, and found her mother sitting on her bed, wand in hand.  
  
"Lily, your seven now and are going to go to our school (as she often called it) in a few years. You've already shown your magic through your courage and goodness. I want to show you something, how would you like to start learning real magic?" Sarah asked her daughter, who stared at her in awe. She hadn't expected to perform any type of spell until she left home, aside from the accidental happenings that were common among young witches and wizards.  
  
Lily nodded fixedly, with her blue eyes staring at the smooth wand. She was eager to join her mother in the world of proper witches and wizards, for although she loved her father deeply, she never shared the sameness with him that she did with her mother. Petunia always made things worse, ever since she had discovered her sister's magical abilities; she had loathed Lily with the greatest contempt. Sarah said it was merely jealousy, Lily said it was because her sister was a snot.  
  
Sarah lifted the wand in her right hand and clasped it gently between her index finger, middle finger, and thumb. "Now, Love, I can only teach you a few things, you have to wait until school to learn most everything. But first, let's start with a little light. When you get your own wand, these will work much better, and you needn't ever fear dark again so long as you have it with you. Lumos." Sarah flicked her wrist and Lily listened intently to the spell her mother had often used when lightening storms had seized power from the house. The dimly lit room immediately brightened and Lily was cheered by the prospect that light could be brought about by the mere utterance of a word. Sarah passed the shining wand to her daughter, but gently warned her not to try anything without her, as Lily was an underage witch. Holding it together, they simultaneously spoke Lumos on the darkened wand and it brightly illuminated the faces of both the gray mother and glinting daughter. Sarah gave a tired smile of pride and took the wand from her child's hand and clutched it tightly to her own chest, as though it was an aid to some unforgotten pain.  
  
"Lily, love, now I am going to show you something that you must never do, and I pray that you will never see again."  
  
Lily looked at her mother inquisitively, curious to know this forbidden deed, to see why it made her mother look graver than was normal for the melancholy woman.  
  
"You know things have not been easy for me, for any of us- I have never recovered from...... what happened. I've done every thing I could, really I have, but I've failed as a mother and a person."  
  
Lily tried to shake her head in disagreement, to tell her mother that she was a beautiful and heroic person, that she endowed her family with every bit of strength that she lost 5 years ago, but her blue eyes were fixated on the wand, which Sarah now pulled away from her bosom.  
  
"-And I want Jonathan to know I don't blame him, I want Jonathan to know I love him! Tell Jonathan that this home has been curse with my spirit and he is a good man, and I can never repay him for his love!"  
  
Sarah's eyes were filling with tears but Lily didn't notice, she was drawn to her mother's shaking hands, turning, turning, turning the wand towards her own broken heart.  
  
"Tell Jonathan I going home!" Sarah was fully weeping now, tears violently broke free from her lashed and streaked toward the ground.  
  
The wand was now pointed straight at Sarah's chest, which rose and fell swift as winter wind, cold and bleak. Lily opened her mouth to speak, to tell her Mum that she was scared, that she didn't understand which Jonathan and why, to tell her mother to stop. But as those words were caught in her throat, Sarah's own fell from her lips-  
  
Avada Kedavra...  
  
Lily gaped as a blinding green flask escaped the tip of her mother's wand. It passed over her face making it look sickly and wan. The green lingered in her staring eyes and mingled with the blue as she lunged to her mother's side, unknowing of what happened, yet at the same time knowing why. She gently touched the cold gray flesh of her mother's cheek, right below the sunken tired eyes. She recognized herself in an uncanny deja vu, and she saw her brother there and knew peace. Her tears came swiftly and silently, but they were tears of guilt, so she let them fall, over her beloved mother, in shame. 


	3. Part 3-1

The bright orange light of dawn crept overt the pinewood floors in the bedroom of Lily Evans and shone onto her face. She defensively raised one arm to block out the sun, which was now glaring at her squarely in the face. Knowing that now she was awake, she knew that she would not fall back asleep, Lily swung her legs around and grazed the hardwood floor with her toes. Goose bumps pricked up on her open skin; although it was June and the final term of grade school was over, the air was chilled.  
  
Lily's birthday had been a few weeks previous to the end of the school year, and she was now eleven. She knew that in mid-summer she would receive her letter of acceptance to Hogwarts, but she really didn't know what to expect. Her anxiety didn't rest so much in the fear of going to school as it did in her fear of confronting her mother's past.  
  
Lily stepped onto the cold floor and pulled her nightshirt more tightly around her. She walked groggily into the hall, but skirted widely around the second door. Ever since her seventh year, Lily could not bring herself to step into her parent's bedroom. Whenever she passed it (which was often) her hair stood on end, and her mind reverted to the terrible memories it contained.  
  
Jonathan, after Sarah's suicide, changed. He was, previous to it, a good- natured and happy man. Now however, he was an utter reflection of his dead wife, except less sober. The fact that every morning he was hung over in the bed Sarah had slept in only hours before she passed didn't seem to rattle him in the least, and Lily didn't think he realized it. When he came home that day, 4 years ago, he found Lily crying next to her mother, asking her to "Come Back! Please Mummy, Come Back!" he died in his own way. He shoved his daughter away from her mother, he, who never raised his voice, struck his Lily. Ever since the funeral, his veins coursed cold with alcohol.  
  
Now Lily tried to stay away as often as possible, which, without the comfort of friends that Petunia had, was extremely difficult.  
  
Lily Evans crept down the dark stairs and into the equally dark kitchen. Her stomach rumbled as she searched through the cupboards for cereal, which was scarce now that her father didn't care. We have a fridge full of beer and nothing to eat- thought the hungry girl, but her thought trailed of into the darkness when she was startled by a loud snoring it the next room.  
  
Jonathan Evans lay, sprawled on the floor of the parlor, reeking of whisky. With Lily's entrance, he gave a loud grunt and opened the eye that was not pressed against the floor. He lifted one arm to push himself into a sitting position, and stared at his daughter,  
  
"Wha's you wan..?"  
  
"Daddy, we haven't got any food."  
  
"Assssor mother. Im notha one who sh-sh-ops. Damn heads killing me too. Gemme a beer kid!"  
  
"How can you say that? Mums, she's...DEAD daddy, she's DEAD! Don't you remember why you've slept alone for the past five years? She's gone" Lily screamed these angry words to her father, trying to penetrate the incomprehensive drunken man that sat before her. Daddy, why can't you just remember? Daddy come back!  
  
"Don' talk 'bout your mother like that girl." he said, and then realizing what she last spoke, said "and dyou know I've not slept alone, I've got mine."  
  
At his final words, Lily could bear no more, she ran, barefooted out the door and into the cold dark dawn.  
  
Lily stood in the dim street, looking back at the open doorway of her home, knowing it to be the threshold between her long suffering and lonely freedom. She watched her father breathing heavily, she could imagine that all to familiar smell of booze on his breath. Her sister was probably happily sitting with her boyfriend, Vernon, while Lily lived and struggled with the questions that existed in her mind and heart. She did not know whether to return, or run.  
  
I can't, I can't leave dad, it's not fair to him. And where would I go? I'll give him one last chance. Just one. If he does anything else, I go... God, help me! Lily's heart was beating fast out of fear and anger but she couldn't leave without a goodbye. She just couldn't be her mother. At that instant, she realized that Sarah was whom she blamed all along, all because she couldn't take the death of Jonathan. Lily shuddered at the remembrance of that cold December, but her thoughts trailed away from her family, and settle on a chance. A hope.  
  
Lily's mind strayed back to December 17, 1963, and the last of her family's sanity. She recalled one person who cared about what happened to her mother and who may have even sacrificed her livelihood for her. Lily thought of the nurse, Rachel and yearned for someone who cared about her as well. This is stupid, she's probably long gone from Oxford's and I haven't seen her in 9 years. I've just got to go back inside and face my life. But still... She thought this and yet, couldn't help desiring to go back to the hospital, to see if Rachel was the same woman. She was sure that she could find help there, if she couldn't seek consolence in her own family.  
  
"I'm sorry, Daddy", she whispered as she stepped back to the door and over her, once again snoring father and flew up the stairs to plan her escape.  
  
Lily was gripped throughout with the sharp twang of guilt, even though she hadn't actually left. She just hoped that, when the time came, she could actually do it. It's not selfish of me to go, is it? Daddy can take care of himself (I hope) but he certainly can't take care of me. I can't stay... Doubt bombarded her mind but she vowed, on the soul of her brother, that she would go and find salvation from her cold home and father's sour beer breath.  
  
In her room Lily searched for her schoolbag, which would suffice for her luggage, for all traveling bags were in her mother's closet. She filled it with clothes and enough money for lunch and a few cab fairs and declared herself packed. But not ready she thought, still fearing the wrath of her own guilt and remorse, which she had conceived early. Remembering her vow, she pinched herself hard to keep her mind and Two days... 


End file.
